Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(28)

“Get in and I’ll tell you. We can’t have this conversation here.” He unlocked a large SUV and held the door for her.

Sarah weighed her options. Getting in the truck was the easiest thing to do. Resisting orders, going off on her own were harder. Would she put lives at risk? What about her family? Coworkers? How far did this go?

Ultimately, she felt safest with Rand, which made no sense at all.

Sarah climbed into the SUV, vowing to hold him to that promise. Rand circled the vehicle and got in behind the wheel. She buckled in. “I want answers.”

“Not yet.”

“When, then?”

“Later.”

“Rand—”

He grasped her arm and laid his fingers across her lips. Something about his gaze, the wary way he stared at her, made her keep the next words to herself. He didn’t want to talk in the building or in the vehicle.

Because someone’s listening in?

She nodded and kept her trap shut.

He guided the truck out to the drive and onto the darkened street. She sighed and settled in, watching the trees pass them by, the moon still hanging in the sky overhead. Usually stargazing relaxed her, seeing how big and wide the universe was. Not tonight. All her muscles coiled tight. Every bump in the rode jarred all the way up her spine.

“It’s a nice night,” she said into the silence.

Rand didn’t so much as grunt a reply.

“How far are we from the city?” Her memory of the drive out was foggy. She’d dozed off and on, too exhausted to hold it together until they arrived.

They drove another twenty minutes, finally crossing into some town’s city limits. Rand pulled off and into a gas station, but not up to a pump.

“What are we—”

“Why don’t you pump the gas while I hit the head?” Rand said over her.

“O-kay.” Sarah blinked at the parking spot they’d pulled into, an easy thirty yards from the closest pump, on the side of the small building.

Nothing made sense tonight.

She popped her seat belt and got out, stretching the kinks out of her back and legs. A car pulled up two spaces down and…Hector got out.

Sarah blinked at the guy, then at Rand.

“Keys are in the ignition, bags are in the back.” Hector pushed his hands into his pockets and glanced around.

“What the hell is going on?” Sarah asked.

“We’ll talk about it on the way. Get in.” Rand gestured to the four-door sedan.

“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You said before we’d talk. We didn’t. Now you’re telling me to just do what you say, which makes no goddamn sense. Someone’s going to tell me what the hell is going on. I’ve been grilled to death and kept in the dark. Either you tell me why I should go, or I’ll…call a cab and go home.”

Rand stalked toward her, his expression made fiercer by the lack of light. “I told you. Wei is landing. We have to watch where he’s going so we can try to get the case back. Understand?”

“No. That’s just it. Why would I want to be anywhere he is?”

“A good offense—”

“Do not give me that cliché line. This is my life, Rand.”

“We need to know what they know. I don’t speak Chinese, you do. I don’t know how these people work, you do. We can’t trust any other operative. No one else knows we’ve left, because we can’t trust anyone. We still don’t know who put the tracker in you. The way I see it, we either go after this full force, or we run. Running solves nothing. Fighting back is our only option for protecting you and getting the contact protocols back so we don’t lose decades of work. Does that make sense?”

“You could try being less of a dick.” She hated that his words made sense. Besides, she wasn’t the kind of person who ran from anything. She wanted answers.

“You could try being a team player.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. God, it was high school all over again. She wanted to scratch his eyes out. He could have said half of that and gotten her in the car with little to no argument.

“Yeah, well, at least I know how to follow orders.” He pointed at the sedan. “Get in the car, or don’t, but whatever you do—don’t go home. You’re going to risk your parents’ lives if you lead whoever’s behind this back to them. Get it?”

“You think I don’t know that? That I haven’t been doing this long enough to realize my choices put my family at risk? Why do you think I don’t want to blindly do what you say? It’s not to pester you, that’s for sure. God, you can be an ass sometimes.”

Rand’s face twisted up and he balled his hands into fists. For a few moments, he stared at the asphalt. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not used to working with a team.”

“Did hell just freeze over, or did I hear an apology?”

“Yeah, don’t break out the ice skates yet. We’ve got work to do.” He glanced over his shoulder at Hector watching them snipe at each other.

She still wanted to strangle Rand, but not as much anymore. She didn’t like this plan, but in a scenario where they could trust no one it was almost their only option.

Sarah circled around the sedan to the passenger side while Rand slid behind the wheel. He cranked the engine and they rolled out onto a side street. Neither spoke, but the silence was easier now.